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■ II -- 


Report of the 
comrorttec oo syllabus. 


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: 'f r ' 

The Association of American 
Medical Colleges. 


REPORT OP THE COMMITTEE ON SYLLABUS. 


CHICAGO : 

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION PRESS 
1898 









LIBRARY 
OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL 
COLLEGES. 


Report of Committee on Syllabus. 


Chicago, Feb. 15, 1896. 

A committee was appointed by the secretary of the 
Association, Dr. Perry Millard, on each of the branches 
of a medical curriculum in 1894. These several com¬ 
mittees made reports which were presented at the 
meeting of the Association at Baltimore, May 7, 1895. 
The several reports were referred to a committee con¬ 
sisting of Drs. Perry Millard, Howard A. Kelly and 
Bayard Holmes, and ordered printed. 1 On account of 
the various standards used by the several committees, 
it was found impossible to coordinate this work so 
that a well-balanced course of study could be recom¬ 
mended. Therefore during the past year a plan was 
formed by the present secretary for the study of med¬ 
ical education in conferences. The work was laid out 
so that each conference would have a special part of 
the curriculum to consider. 

In order to call together representative men and 
educators ten institutions were requested to send del¬ 
egates to the first meeting. The call was addressed 
as follows: 


My Dear Doctor.— The Association of American Medical 
Colleges has now arrived at practically the following condition 
of things: Nearly half of the medical schools in the United 
States are members of this Association, and more than half of 
the schools in which regular medicine is taught. 

All members of this Association will hereafter require four 
years of attendance for graduation. 

The minimum year of schools in this Association will consist 
of six months, the average year of eight months and the maxi¬ 
mum probably of nine months of actual study. 


i Report of the Committee on Syllabus, Journal American Medi¬ 
cal Association, June 29 aud July G, 1895. 


1046375 








2 


The entrance requirement is now fixed at the minimum, 
equal to about the second year of the ordinary high school 
course, and that requirement will probably soon be equal to 
the average requirements for admission to the literary depart¬ 
ment of colleges and universities. 

The amount of study which any student of a medical school 
can be reasonably expected to do is fixed by pedagogic experi¬ 
ence, and is four recitation hours a day, requiring each about 
an hour and a half of study for preparation. 

It is very desirable in this formative period of education that 
the discussion cover the most desirable course of study, the 
most desirable methods of presenting each branch and the most 
desirable methods of testing the attainments of the students 
and giving them credit for their work. 

Therefore the secretary of the Association of American Medi¬ 
cal Colleges, with the consent of the President and Judicial 
Council, hereby calls upon the colleges to furnish representa¬ 
tives to a number of committees, to meet at suitable points and 
on suitable occasions to discuss these subjects and present a 
combined report at Atlanta next May. On account of the 
number of subjects he proposes to divide the curriculum into 
three groups. 

Group 1 will be composed of all those branches that treat 
most exclusively of the normal human body. 

Group 2 will consist of all those branches which consider 
most exclusively the diseased human body. 

Group 3 will consist of all those branches which deal with 
the treatment of the diseased human body and the prevention 
of disease. 

Three committees will be appointed, each consisting of as 
nearly ten persons as possible, one committee for each of these 
groups. Each committee will discuss the following topics : 1, 
the amount of time and the amount of work for each branch in 
this group : 2, the place in the four year course in which each 
branch in this group should appear; 3, the particular work 
required in each branch and the amount of work allowed to be 
elective; the particular work suggested by the committee as 
most desirable out of which to fill up the elective portion ; 4, 
the methods by means of which each of these branches should 
be presented to the students; 5, the methods and means by 
which each student should be tested and given credit on each 
branch. 

In order to begin this work the committee of ten upon Group 
No. 1, in which will be found anatomy, physiology, histology 
and embryology, is hereby called to meet at the Palmer House 
upon Saturday, the 15th of February, 1896, at 9 a.m. The 
University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, the Uni¬ 
versity of Iowa, the University of Wooster, the Lake Forest 




3 


University, the Northwestern University, Cincinnati College of 
Medicine and Surgery, Columbus Medical College, Detroit 
College of Medicine, Fort Wayne College of Medicine, are re¬ 
quested to send each a representative, to remain in the city 
three days at least, and hold a continuous meeting until the 
work is finished. 

If your institution will cooperate in this work be kind 
enough to inform me by return mail and suggest the person 
whom you wish to represent your university upon the com¬ 
mittee. 

Trusting that I may hear from you by return mail, I am, 
Very truly yours, Bayard Holmes. 

The conference convened at the Palmer House at 
the hour mentioned with the following representatives 
.present: 

W. S. Hall, Northwestern University; W. E. Lewis, 
Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery; A. P. 
Ohlmacher, Wooster University; C. B. Stamen, Fort 
Wayne Medical College; Bayard Holmes, College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago; J. E. Brown, Ohio 
Medical University; W. D. Middleton, Iowa State 
University; H. O. Walker, Detroit College of Medi¬ 
cine; W. O. Gross, Fort Wayne Medical College; 
Thomas G. Lee, University of Minnesota. 

The conference was called to order by the Secretary 
of the Association and the plan of conducting the 
business decided upon. 

As a preliminary step to the arrangement of a cur¬ 
riculum the committee considered it expedient to 
recommend the use of certain terms in a more or less 
technical sense, thus avoiding misconceptions and 
facilitating the expression of ideas on the subject. 

The Recitation Period .—A recitation period is the 
time occupied by the student in the preparation and 
recitation of one lesson. The time spent in a recita¬ 
tion is nominally one hour, and usually a topic as¬ 
signed for a recitation requires about one and one-half 
hours of outside preparation. Let the expression 
u recitation period” be understood to mean two and a 
half hours’ work. From this it is clear that a labora¬ 
tory exercise requiring two hours of laboratory work 
and one-half hour of outside reading and preparation 


4 


of notes is equivalent to a recitation period. Further^ 
each didactic lecture involves, or at least should in¬ 
volve, a parallel course of supplementary reading as¬ 
signed by the lecturer. In order to introduce uni¬ 
formity into all the courses let it be understood that 
the assigned outside study accompanying a lecture 
course be equal to one and one-half hours for each 
one-hour lecture. In the same way a two-hour clinic 
should be made to consume in the aggregate an extra 
half-hour of work, either in reading up parallel cases,, 
in taking and recording of histories or in the exam¬ 
ination of" pathologic material, for every two hours of 
actual work in the clinic. 

By thus putting all work on the basis of the reci¬ 
tation period of two and one-half hours, the work of 
arranging a typical curriculum is much facilitated. 

As to the number of recitation periods which should 
constitute a week’s work, the discussion brought out 
many arguments. In the first place the medical col¬ 
leges of to-day are for the most part the evolved pro¬ 
duct of those of yesterday when a year’s work was 
crowded into five or six months, and a whole medical 
course into two or three of these short years. Under 
the earlier conditions as much as seventy-five hours of 
mental work, 30 recitation periods, was accomplished 
by the diligent student in one week. But the exten¬ 
sion of the course of study to more than three times its 
original length has not been accompanied by a suffi¬ 
cient relief of the tension of work to admit the stu¬ 
dent of average strength to carry the course without 
manifesting signs of overwork. Most literary and 
scientific colleges require from 14 to 16 recitation 
periods per week of each student. Most medical col¬ 
leges require from 20 to 30 recitation periods per 
week. The committee agreed that because of the 
greater maturity of students in medical schools, and 
the fact that a larger proportion of the work is “low- 
pressure” work, in laboratories and clinics, medical 
schools are justified in requiring 20 recitation periods 
per week. This represents fifty hours of work per 


week for the student. It is recommended that as far 
as may be these 20 periods be assigned to five days 
with 4 periods each. Somewhat more work than this 
may be permitted in special cases. 

What shall constitute a year of work ? Most of the 
institutions belonging to the Association of American 
Medical Colleges have seven or eight months for a year’s 
work, a few have only six, while others have as many as 
nine months. The committee agreed, that their work 
would be most useful if they based their recommen¬ 
dations upon a year of thirty weeks, of 20 recitation 
periods each, or an aggregate of 600 recitation periods. 
A college having only six months (twenty-five weeks) 
could attain about the same aggregate by requiring 
24 recitation periods per week, while a college having 
nine months might well reduce the required number 
of recitation periods per week to 18. Such a reduc¬ 
tion of quantity would naturally be accompanied by 
an improvement in the quality of the students’ work. 

Another very convenient expression is the term 
year hour, which is defined as one recitation period 
per week throughout the year, or 30 recitation periods. 
But the number of recitation periods would depend 
upon the length of the year in any particular institu¬ 
tion and might be 25 or 36 according to the length of 
the year. In any case the number of year hours mul¬ 
tiplied by the number of recitation periods per week 
should equal 600 recitation periods. 

It was further concluded by the committee expe¬ 
dient to divide the year into a Winter semester and 
a Spring semester of 300 recitation periods each. 

The committee then considered the division of the 
four years of study now required by all members of 
this Association among the branches of study which 
it considered should be contained in the medical cur¬ 
riculum. This necessitated the consideration of the 
preliminary education of the student and the required 
and elective work. 

It was assumed that the students of our institutions 
are fully up to the requirements of the Association 


6 


and possess a good knowledge of English, a thorough 
training in arithmetic and elementary algebra, a thor¬ 
ough training in elementary physics by the laboratory 
method, at least two years'" work in Latin; but that 
they have had in a majority of cases no preliminary 
training in chemistry or biology. 

In preparing students for medical study teachers 
should aim at a serviceable knowledge of English and 
English literature and a definite command of the 
English language in composition. Thesis work on 
topics with which the student is engaged should be 
strongly insisted upon, and every attention should be 
paid to formsjnecessary for the guidance of the printer. 
The work in arithmetic should be so thoroughly com¬ 
pleted that it would become an unconscious tool in 
the mind of the student, and it should be combined 
with a thorough knowledge of the metric linear, 
square, cubic and liquid measure and with the metric 
weights. The algebra should be sufficient to cover 
simple and quadratic eqations. The course in physics 
should be much more extensive and thorough than 
that proposed by the committee of ten on secondary 
school studies, and published by the Bureau of Edu¬ 
cation (pp. 25, 26 and 117-127). It should be a care¬ 
ful course’in experimental physics in which the stu¬ 
dent should prepare his own apparatus, conduct his 
own experiments after such a plan as that outlined in 
John Trowbridge’s “The New Physics,” or in similar 
works in the same pedagogic line. 

The Latin should be studied from the philologic 
rather than the literary side, as so little is expected. 

In regard to electives, the committee urged that all 
colleges allow a small margin of electives to begin in 
the second year and that each college make this work 
cover such branches as it is able to offer in the best 
quality. The value of even a small proportion, say 
five one-hundredths, of elective work in increasing 
the quality and spirit of all other work, can not be 
over-estimated when the resources of the school are 
such as to permit. Properly conducted the electives 


7 


allow a choice of work adapted to the needs or 
inclinations of the students, while at the same time 
a larger number of medical teachers are given op¬ 
portunity to devise and offer work some of which 
may be found of the greatest educational or profes¬ 
sional value. Teachers may thus be discovered and 
methods of teaching thus be made known and the 
quality of teaching in the whole school greatly 
improved. 

The following diagrams express the ideas of the 
committee on the proportion and disposition of the 
curriculum for the four years of the medical course. 


-1-1-1-1-1-r-1-1-1-1-1-'-1-1- 

^ (SEMETRAL CHEMISTRY 

physiological chemistry ; 

MATERIA 

MEDICA 

PHYSIOLOGY 

ecology — histology - embryology ; 



- 

AM ATOMY- ; 


1.—Diagram showing the distribution of the 600 “ recitation pe¬ 
riods” of the first year. The lateral divisions represent thirty weeks, 
the vertical divisions the twenty “ recitation periods” each week. The 
first half of the materia medica should be pharmacognosy and the other 
half pharmacology. 

It will be noticed that chemistry and medical chem¬ 
istry are crowded into the first year. This expresses 
the sense of the committee after very careful discus¬ 
sion. The committee holds that chemistry should 
very soon be required by the members of this Asso¬ 
ciation for admission. The same may be said of biol¬ 
ogy or comparative anatomy. The high schools, 
academies and colleges now teach chemistry and biol¬ 
ogy by the laboratory method, and it will not long be 
necessary for medical colleges of the first class to 
teach either chemistry or biology. 










8 


ANATOMY. 

The ground now covered in the course in anatomy 
is in accordance with the ideas of the committee. The 
separation of regional and surgical anatomy does not 
seem necessary or desirable. 


' MATERIA' medic a ' 

THERAPEUTICS 

HYGIENE 

PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS 

- BACTERIOLOGY AtTD PATHOLOGY - 

ANTHROPOMETRY 

l ELECTIVE 

; ELECTIVE 

HISTOLOGY 

^ SPECIAL HISTOLOGY 

PHYSIOLOGY ; 

PHYSIOLOGY 



ANATOMY 


2.—Diagram showing the distribution of the COO “ recitation periods” 
of the second year. 



PATHOLOGY 


- 

CLINICS 


- 


PHYSICAL 1 

DIAGNOSIS CLINICS 


LARYNGOLOGY 

OPERATIVE ourgery 

DERMATOLOGY %YPHILIS 




ELECTIVE 



SURGERY 

- 

MEDICINE 



- 

Ot?5T£TR'ICS 



3.—Diagram showing the distribution of the COO “recitation periods” 
of the third year. 


This branch was relatively well taught in the older 
medical colleges, but improvements have not been 
made as fast as the importance of the subject demands. 
The study of vertebrate morphology is a prerequisite 
to the proper study of human anatomy. The time 































9 


which anatomy receives in the diagram above is three 
recitation periods a week during the first semester of 
the first year and five recitations a week during the 
second semester. Each of these recitation periods 
would consume two and a half hours of the students’ 
time. The first semester may be devoted to the study 
of osteology. Every student should have the bones 
for his own use. The simpler parts of the skeleton 
should be studied first. The study of any bone should 
consist in a thorough study of every aspect of the organ 
with every pedagogical appliance. Drawings should 
be required in the various positions necessary to 


curves 


ELECTIVE 


TURGEPY 


GYNAFCQLQGY 


NERVOUS YYJTEM 


MEDIOTE 


ophthalmology 

CHILDREN 


OTOLOGY 
GENITO URINARY 


ORS TET.RI C.S 


MEDICAL JURI-TPRUDENCE 


4.—Diagram showing the distribution of the GCO “recitation periods’ 
of the fourth year. 


bring out all the parts. These drawings should at 
first be made from the object and later from memory. 
Only such features of the bone should be studied as 
the bones themselves present. Muscular attachments 
and the relation of other structures can not ethically 
or pedagogically be considered until the student sees 
the parts in position in the anatomic laboratory. In 
every possible way the teacher should maintain in the 
minds of the students the proper anatomic perspec¬ 
tive and lead them to a vivid and indelible idea of the 
essential points. There ought to be an opportunity 
in every class exercise for students to propose 
questions. The recitation between the teacher and 











10 


the students should be familiar and unrestrained. 

The second semester of the first year should be 
spent in the dissecting room. This should be so 
fitted up as to be light, clean and commodious. The 
character of the dissections and laboratory study will 
depend not only on the motive and method of the 
teacher, but upon, and essentially upon, the proper 
preservation of the cadaver, the proper furniture of 
the laboratory and the proper equipment of the stud¬ 
ent with thoroughly good dissecting instruments, 
drawing books, note books and laboratory garments. 
A good workman must have good tools. In the dis¬ 
secting room the muscles, nerves and vessels and their 
relation to the bones should be most carefully studied 
during the first year and all the dissections should be 
made so that these organs may be studied together. 
The bones should be at hand and the relations of 
parts studied and recorded by drawings. The mus¬ 
cles, for example, should be studied on the body, their 
separate offices demonstrated and their attachment 
recorded on the bones previously used. The blood 
and nerve supply should also be discovered and 
recorded on the drawings and sketches which each 
student should be required to make. Incidentally 
and in a general way the viscera should be carefully 
studied during the first year. 

During the first half of the second year the careful 
study of the viscera should be begun. In this work 
it will be necessary if not desirable to use the organs 
of vertebrates for each member of the class in his lab¬ 
oratory examinations while the instructor will demon¬ 
strate from the human cadaver. All the important 
viscera should first be demonstrated in situ, then the 
organs of animals should be studied as detached speci¬ 
mens, and last of all each student should carefully 
dissect during the second semester the whole human 
body, making drawings and notes just as in the dis¬ 
sections of the first year. 

During all this anatomic study the perspective of 
the subject should be carefully maintained by the 


11 


teacher through demonstrations, recitations, quizzes 
and written exercises. The actual contact of the 
parts is of the greatest educational value and the use 
of dissecting gloves by students should never be coun¬ 
tenanced. The necessity for a name should be felt 
by the student before he is required to learn a name. 
Anatomy should be a synonym for familiarity with 
the human body. Much attention should be devoted 
to the comparative study of the organs in the living 
human body. For this purpose students should be 
-encouraged to use one another as subjects in the 
class. In this course, little place is left for didactic 
lectures and much attention is devoted to doing with 
hand and eye. Manual dexterity is acquired by the 
-student on the dead body. 

It must not be forgotten that any method of teach¬ 
ing which secures in the student a rational curiosity 
and provides a way for him to satisfy it is a success, 
while a much better method so used as to paralyze the 
student’s curiosity while it secures ever so good a com¬ 
mand of the anatomic nomenclature is a failure. 

Any text-book is good enough if it follows or 
accompanies the careful dissection of a well preserved 
cadaver in a well furnished laboratory. 

A library of anatomic works should be in the dis¬ 
secting room. A list of very desirable literature will 
be found in the August, 1895, number of the Bulletin 
of the American Academy of Medicine, pp. 273-276. 

BIOLOGY, EMBRYOLOGY, AND HISTOLOGY. 

Inasmuch as biology is an essential introduction to 
the subjects comprehended in the usual medical cur¬ 
riculum, and since but a small proportion of students 
present themselves wdth the knowledge of this subject 
upon entering the medical school, this committee be¬ 
lieves that it becomes the duty of the medical school 
to supply instruction in elementary biology until the 
entrance requirements are raised sufficiently high to 
include this branch. The object of this biologic 
w T ork should be to serve as a natural introduction to 
the study of the normal and diseased human body, 


12 


and not to make zoologists or botanists of medical 
students. Most of this work can be presented by the 
object method in the laboratory, and as an outline of 
the work the following plan is submitted. 

Course A. Elementary General Biology. —This 
course will serve to introduce the student to the use of 
the microscope, to elementary microscopic and labo¬ 
ratory methods, and to acquaint him with a broadened 
idea of the phenomena of life in animls and plants. 
As types for study in this we recommend ameba, 
paramecium, vorticella, hydra, and earthworm on the 
zoologic side; and protococcus, yeast, bacteria,, 
spirogyra, and molds on the botanic side. It is hardly 
to be expected that the teacher will be able to present 
all of these types in a given period and substitutes 
will doubtless be found necessary in certain cases. 

In the laboratory exercises each student should be 
supplied with a microscope, and with simple equip¬ 
ment sufficient to enable him to independently prose¬ 
cute all the technical work demanded. The labora¬ 
tory exercises should be guided by simple directions 
such as are found in the “Practical exercises” of Hux¬ 
ley and Martin’s Practical Elementary Biology. Free 
hand drawing from the object should be systematically 
demanded of every student in the class. Simultan¬ 
eously with the laboratory work a reading or recita¬ 
tion course should be provided in which Parker’s 
Elementary Biology will serve as an excellent text. 

Course B. Elementary Vertebrate Anatomy .— 
Following Course A, in natural order, and serving as 
an invaluable introduction to descriptive and practi¬ 
cal human anatomy, comes a laboratory study of sev¬ 
eral typical vertebrates. An elaborate study of com¬ 
parative anatomy is impossible in the limits of a medi¬ 
cal college course and it is expected that this course 
will prove mainly useful to the student in perfecting 
him in methods of anatomic laboratory study, while 
it incidentally familarizes him with the anatomy of 
the animals chosen as types. 

This study should be pursued almost entirely in the 


13 


laboratory by the aid of a suitable laboratory manual; 
and a comparatively thorough study of one or two 
types should be encouraged instead of the cursory ex¬ 
amination of a number. By means of suitable equip¬ 
ment the student should make such preparations as 
wet and dry skeletons, vascular injections, and pre¬ 
served specimens. Numerous free-hand drawings 
made directly from the objects are to be required. As 
types for the work we recommend the frog, as studied 
after the directions in Huxley and Martin’s Practical 
Elementary Biology, and one mammal, the rat, the 
rabbit, the cat or the dog. 

On account of the convenience with which each stu¬ 
dent can handle his material, and on account of the 
greater delicacy of the dissections we consider the 
smaller mammals preferable, and for this purpose the 
dissection of the rat as prescribed by Martin and 
Moale in Vol. Ill of their Handbook of Vertebrate 
Dissection is especially recommended. 

Course C. Embryology .—During the spring months 
when eggs can be easily obtained, and upon comple¬ 
tion of courses A and B, the study of embryology 
should be begun. The foundation for a study of 
this subject is furnished by practical laboratory 
exercises. 

The most convenient type for introductory study is 
the embryo chick which should be studied after the 
plan outlined in the “Practical Suggestions for study¬ 
ing the Development of the Chick” given in the Ap¬ 
pendix of Foster and Balfour’s Elements of Embryol¬ 
ogy. A series of whole embryos of characteristic 
stages of development are to be studied by the stu¬ 
dent, in the egg, both as fresh transparent objects, and 
as opaque objects. A series of typical sections are 
now to be prepared by the student from the material 
which he has obtained and preserved, and at this time 
flie technique of killing, hardening, imbedding and 
sectioning for microscopic study can be acquired. 
Mammalian embryology can be introduced by several 
laboratory exercises upon the embryo pig or sheep. 


14 


These embryos can usually be obtained in abundance 
from slaughter houses. 

In connection with the laboratory work in this 
course we would prescribe reading or recitation exer¬ 
cises from some text-book, for example, Marshall’s 
Vertebrate Embryology, Minot’s Human Embryology, 
or Hertwig’s Text-book of Embryology. Marshall’s 
work will be found especially adapted to the labora¬ 
tory course just presented, while the works of Minot 
or of Hertwig more properly serve as reference books 
for advanced students. 

Course D. Histology .—In connection with Course A 
the student acquires a familiarity with the use of the 
microscope, and an elementary knowledge of the animal 
and vegetable cell both in unicellular and multicellular 
organisms. At this time also an acquaintance with 
simple microscopic technique is obtained. 

Following that portion of Course B in which' the 
frog is dissected the special study of elementary his¬ 
tology may be introduced. With the aid of such 
methods as teasing, maceration, dissociation, and possi¬ 
bly with some free-hand sectioning, the student should 
study the simple histologic tissues. A few of the 
more easily applied reagents should be employed by 
the student in his work upon the material which he 
obtains from his frog. Great weight should be laid 
upon the thorough mastery of the technique involved 
in this work, which is a step higher than that em¬ 
ployed in Course A. A great deal can be done in the 
study of the blood, epithelium, connective tissue, 
muscle and nerve, and even of some of the organs 
with a very simple laboratory equipment and easily 
acquired methods, and we believe it the duty of the 
laboratory teacher to impress this upon the student. 
The directions for histologic study in connection with 
the laboratory work upon the frog in Huxley and 
Martin’s Practical Elementary Biology may with cer¬ 
tain modifications, be taken as a guide for this portion 
of histology. 

The study of histology proper may be suspended in 


15 


favor of Course C in which the more elaborate tech¬ 
nical methods of microscopic anatomy are introduced, 
along with the subject of histogenesis. 

Upon the completion of this elementary course in 
the first year’s work, the study of special histology as 
applied particularly to the tissues and organs of the 
human body should be pursued. This is the work in 
histology which we would prescribe for the second 
year’s course, and with students already trained in 
ordinary laboratory methods, it will be possible to in¬ 
clude more of the special and advanced methods of 
histologic research. 

Here also each student should be provided with a 
full working outfit and it is expected that all of the 
preparations demanded in the course are to he made 
by the student from the raio material lohich he obtains 
himself or which is furnished to him by the teacher. 
These laboratory exercises can best be guided by 
type-written or mimeograph syllabi prepared by the 
teacher to cover each given lesson, and in these syl¬ 
labi brief technical instructions should be supplied 
together with a few hints as to the observations to be 
made by the student, and the prosecution of technical 
details and the detailed study of the object should be 
left to the student. Drawings directly from the pre¬ 
parations should be demanded throughout the course 
and full descriptive notes should be prepared by the 
students. 

As a supplement to the laboratory exercises in his¬ 
tology the students may be referred to one or more of 
the standard text-books upon histology, and in some 
special subjects it may be found advisable to intro¬ 
duce a few lectures. 

This department ought also to possess a working 
histologic library. Text-books ought not to be used 
at all. The student should be referred to the library 
for the further study of the problems presented to him 
in his laboratory work. 

THE COURSE IN PHYSIOLOGY. 

The course in physiology should be continued 


16 


through two years and should be in a general way 
coordinated with the course in comparative anatomy 
and general biology and histology. By coordination 
in this connection is meant the arrangement of the 
courses in such a way that the student shall learn first 
the more fundamental and general and then the more 
special. To teach the student the physiology of the 
liver one year and the gross and minute anatomy of 
that organ the next year must be recognized by all as 
an inversion the logical order. To teach the anatomy 
of an organ one year and its physiology the next year 
puts the teachers of both these branches at considera¬ 
ble disadvantage, and the chances are great that the 
student will have a less clear comprehension of the 
subject presented in this way than he w^ould if the 
interval elapsing between the study of the more gen¬ 
eral branch and the more special branch be a short one. 
Examples of coordination will be found in the arrange¬ 
ment of the following course in physiology: 

Every course in physiology should be accompanied 
by laboratory exercises in which the student may 
familiarize himself with the technique of the subject 
and may demonstrate for himself the more fundamen¬ 
tal facts of this science. The laboratory exercises 
should be coordinated with the recitations and dem¬ 
onstrations as far as it is possible to do so. 

The first half of the first semester (eight weeks) 
should be spent in a study of the physiology of the 
cell as illustrated in unicellular plants and animals. 
While the student is studying the morphology of the 
protococcus, the yeast cell, the ameba and the parame- 
cium in the biologic course he may profitably study 
the physiology of these organisms from such a text as, 
“ The Cell” (Hertwig), and should repeat in the labora¬ 
tory the experiments mentioned in Hertwig’s book. 
“ Allgemeine Physiologie” (Max Verworn, Jena, 1895) 
is a valuable help to the instructor who is conducting 
such a course. 

The second half of the first semester should be spent 
on muscle-nerve physiology. Having already studied 


17 


the reaction of ameba and paramecium to electricity, 
and having studied, in general histology, the structure 
of muscle fibers and cells, and nerve fibers and cells; 
further having made careful dissections of frogs and 
other vertebrate animals the student is in a position to 
comprehend and appreciate the reaction of muscle- 
tissue in response to various direct stimuli and to indi¬ 
rect stimuli applied to the nerve. The frog-heart and 
the “ muscle-nerve preparation” are most used for such 
experiments. A convenient text to follow in the labora¬ 
tory exercises is “ Sterling’s Practical Physiology.” 

Beginning with the second semester or second half 
of the first year the general subject of nutrition should 
be begun. Whether one introduces this field of phy¬ 
siology with the study of the circulatory system or 
of the digestive system is a matter of little conse¬ 
quence. The problems of the circulation being, for 
the most part, physical problems, would seem to jus¬ 
tify the consideration of that subject first, followed by 
the respiratory system, which presents simple prob¬ 
lems in mechanics, physics and chemistry. The stu¬ 
dent, having in the meantime made some progress in 
physiologic chemistry, is able to comprehend the gen¬ 
eral features of the chemic problems involved in 
digestion, and should now enter upon a systematic 
consideration of the nutrition: 1, food and foodstuffs; 
2, preparation of foods; 3, mastication; 4, deglutition; 
5, salivary digestion; 6, gastric digestion; 7, intestinal 
digestion; 8, absorption; 9, distribution; 10, assimi¬ 
lation or anabolism; 11, katabolism and animal heat, 
and 12, excretion. This course will propably consume 
the second semester of the first year and a part or all 
of the first semester of the second year. The remain¬ 
ing time allotted to physiology should be devoted to 
the physiology of the nervous system, the physiology 
of the special senses, and the physiology of reproduc¬ 
tion. All of these^ courses should be accompanied by 
laboratory work. The laboratory manual already men¬ 
tioned has exercises in all of the above subdivisions, 
of the subject (except in reproduction). 


18 


After the student has completed the above required 
courses he should be given an opportunity to elect 
special courses in physiology during the second semes¬ 
ter of the second year and during the third year. 
Profitable elective courses would be, for example: 1, 
physiology of intrauterine life, following Preyer’s 
“ Physiologie des Embryos;” 2, special problems in 
the physiology of digestion, following Brunton in 
“Handbook for the Physiologic Laboratory;” 3, phy¬ 
sical examination of the blood, using hematokrit, 
hemometer, corpuscle counter, micrometer, and stain¬ 
ing methods; 4, experimental physiology of the cen¬ 
tral nervous system, following Cyon; 5, physiologic 
psychology, following Wundt or Ladd. The instruc¬ 
tor may get much help from such works as: Cyon’s 
“ Methodik der Physiol. Experimente;” Gscheidlen’s 
“ Physiologische Methodik;” Foster and Langley’s 
“Practical Physiology; Schenck’s “ Physiologisches 
Practicum;” Brunton and Burdon-Sanderson’s “Hand¬ 
book of the Physiological Laboratory;” McGregor- 
Robertson’s “ Physiological Physics;” and Langen- 
dorf’s “ Physiologische Graphik.” 

THE ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT OP THE DEPART¬ 
MENT OP PHYSIOLOGY. 

Inasmuch as many of the colleges of the Associa¬ 
tion have not yet established physiologic laboratories, 
it is thought well to give a few general hints on the 
subject. The imposing equipments which one sees in 
the physiologic institutes of Europe, equipments 
which, in the aggregate, have cost many thousands of 
dollars, overawe one and make one hesitate to advise 
the undertaking of so great a task, so we are letting 
the years slip by without establishing physiologic 
laboratories. We must not forget that the equipment 
of European laboratories is a growth which has cov¬ 
ered many decades; and further, that it is really advis¬ 
able to allow a department to grow, collecting, in the 
course of a few years, an equipment which is perfectly 
adapted to the wants of the institution and to the 
special methods of the head of the department. The 


19 


'Committee strongly advises the early establishment of 
physiologic laboratories, even if an institution can not 
appropriate for the purpose more than $1,000 to start 
with. If an institution can devote to this department 
a well-lighted general laboratory room 36 ft. to 40 ft. 
-square, with two or three small rooms for instrument 
room, workshop and library, and can appropriate 
$1,000 to $1,500 for the first equipment, then a labor¬ 
atory fee of $5 annually from each student who works 
in the department will, in the course of a decade, pro¬ 
duce a sufficiently full equipment for all practical 
purposes. 

At this point it may be well to give a hint as to the 
organization of the department, as this determines 
largely the character of the equipment and the num¬ 
ber of duplications of each instrument. 

The amount of personal supervision required by the 
student in practical physiology is so great that it is 
inexpedient to attempt to conduct large classes. A 
demonstrator and one assistant demonstrator can not 
properly supervise the work of more than thirty stu¬ 
dents at one time, even though each student be provided 
with a laboratory manual. In the organization and 
equipment here planned let it be understood that the 
laboratory class work in sections of thirty students 
each, and that each section be subdivided into ten divi¬ 
sions of three students e.ach. Now, experience in many 
laboratories has shown that a student will accomplish 
practically as much in one laboratory period of three 
hours as in two laboratory periods of two hours each. 
The three-hour laboratory period promotes economy 
both for the student and for the department. Follow¬ 
ing this arrangement, two instructors would be able to 
supervise the work of 180 students, meeting one sec¬ 
tion of thirty students each day. With this allotment 
of time each student would have three hours of labor¬ 
atory work each week during the year, which would 
enable him to demonstrate for himself all of the fun¬ 
damental principles of physiology. In the question 
of the choice between, 1, the condensation of 180 


20 


hours of laboratory work in physiology into a period 
of sixty days with three hours per day, and 2, the 
distribution of the same number of hours over sixty 
weeks (two years) with three hours per week, and its 
coordination with the theoretic work in physiology and 
with the courses in gross anatomy and histology we 
would, without a moment’s hesitation, decide in favor 
of the latter plan. 

If this general plan of organization be adopted,, 
and if the department wishes to provide for sections 
of thirty students, working in ten divisions of three 
students each, then the apparatus should be duplicated 
in tens. The following list of apparatus is suggested 
as a practical one with which to make a beginning: 


EQUIPMENT FOR GENERAL LABORATORY WORK. 

10 strong tables, 8 feet by 2% feet, at $7.50.$75.00- 

10 kymographions, at $30. 300.00 

20 Daniell’s cells half gallon size, at $3.60.00 

4 pounds of copper wire, No. 16, double cotton cover, at 60 cts. . . 2.40 

Yz pound copper wire, No. 26, double silk cover, at $2.50.1.25 

10 bichromate cells, medium size, at $3 . 30.00* 

10 simple compasses (for detectors) at 30 cts. 3.00 

10 mercurial keys, at 50 cts.• • •. 5.00 

10 contact keys, at 60 cts . ... 6.00- 

10 DuBois keys, at $1 50.15.00 

10 Oxford rheochords, at $2.50 . 25.00 

10 Du Bois-Reymond, induction machines, at $15.150.00 

10 Pohl’s commutators with crossbars, at $2 . 20.00- 

10 pairs of muscle forceps, at 75 cts. 7.50 

10 pairs of tambours, at $4.40.00 

20 heavy-base stands, with fixtures, at $2 ... 40 00 

10 Bunsen burners, at 25 cts.. 2.50 

10 bell jars, at 80 cts,. 8.00 

10 double-valve rubber bulbs, large size, at 75 cts. 7.50* 

5 hemometers (Fleischers), at $15.75.00 

5 sphygmographs (Dudgeon’s) at $20. 100.00* 

5 blood corpuscle counters (Zeiss) at $15.75.00 

General surgical appliances, forceps, shears, etc. 50.00- 

Assorted sizes of glass tubing. 5.00- 

Assorted sizes of soft rubber tubing. 5.00' 

Rubber stoppers, assorted sizes, perforated. 2.00- 

Corks and cork borers, sheet cork. . .. 2.00 

Files, “ knife-blade” for cutting glass tubing. 2.00 

Glassware, gas generators (2), graduated cylinders, pipeltes, flasks, 

bottles, beakers, etc.50.00 

Granite iron troughs and basins, assorted sizes.10.00* 

$1,174.15 


Note.—A bout one-third of this outlay can be saved by having five 
divisions of the section work on one problem while the other five 
divisions work on a related problem which involves other instruments.. 
That would reduce the absolutely necessary equipment to $800. 
































INSTRUMENTS FOR SPECIAL USE AND DEMONSTRATIONS. 


1 galvanometer.$50.00 

1 metronome. 4.00 

1 hematokrit. . 5.00 

1 plethysmograph. 2.50 

1 pair quantitative balances.30.00 

1 pair dog scales.15.00 

2 pairs medium scales for students’ use.10.00 

2 mercurial manometers for blood pressure.10.00 

2 Ludwig rheometers.10.00 

1 moist chamber.20.00 

1 capillary electromometer (Kuhne’s). 5.00 

1 Du Bois-Reymond rheochord.25.00 

1 contact clock..40.00 

2 chronographs.20.00 


$266.00 

This list might easily be extended to amount to sev¬ 
eral thousand dollars, but it is intended here to include 
only those instruments which seem necessary to start 
with. 

THE WORK SHOP. 

Demonstrators and students can easily construct, in 
a shop, many pieces of simple apparatus, which if pur¬ 
chased of some instrument house, would amount to 
many times the cost of the material and would deprive 
students of some very valuable experience. Frog, 
rat, rabbit and dog holders may be made, the tambour 
frames may be furnished with membranes and 
mounted as receiving or transmitting tambours, cardio¬ 
graphs, or stethographs. All writing levers, electrodes, 
etc., should be made by the students. A room with 
bench and vice and $25 for carpenter’s and machinist’s 


tools would be an ample start. 

A FEW NECESSARY CHEMICALS. 

20 pounds CuSOi.$1.30 

10 pounds H2SO4.70 

5 pounds mercury. 3.30 

5 pounds bichromate of potassium.75 

5 pounds kaolin (for electrodes, etc.).25 

2 drams of curare.. . 2.50 

5 pounds gum damar. 1.25 

20 pounds benzol. 4.00 

[2 per cent. sol. of damar in benzol makes the best fluid for fix¬ 
ing tracings made on smoked paper.] 

10 pounds chloroform (imported duty free). 5.00 

30 pounds sulphuric ether (imported duty free). 9.00 

20 pounds surgical cotton at 25 cts. 5.U) 

2 pounds sealing wax in sticks. 1.00 

1 pound mercuric chlorid.80 

2 pounds carbolic acid.70 






























22 


5 gals. abs. alcohol. 

2 pounds sodium hydrate. 

2 pounds magnesium sulphate. 

2 pounds sodium chlorid (pure).* .*. 

10 pounds glycerin. 

1 pound hydrochloric acid.. 

1 pound nitric acid. 

1 pound ammonium hydrate. 

About $50.00 s 

A WORKING LIBRARY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 

Beside the laboratory manuals enumerated under 
the “ Course in Physiology,” we mention a few jour¬ 
nals and general works that should be in every labo¬ 
ratory of physiology: Hermann’s “Handbuch der 
Physiologie ”; Journal of Physiology, ed., Michael 
Foster, Cambridge, England; Pfluger’s Archivf. d. 
gesammte Physiologie, Bonn. Germany; Archiv fur 
Anatomic and Physiologie, [physiol, part] ed., Du 
Bois Reymond, Berlin, pub., Veit & Co., Leipsig; 
Centralblatt fur Physiologie, pub., Franz Deuticke* 
Leipsig; Journal of Experimental Medicine [ physi¬ 
ological part edited by Bowditch, Chittenden and 
Howell], D. Appleton & Co.; “Animal Physiology,” 
Mills. D. Appleton & Co., 1889; “Text-book of Phys¬ 
iology,” Michael Foster, Macmillan, 1888-93; “Human 
Physiology,” Landois and Sterling, Blackiston, Phil¬ 
adelphia, last edition; “Refraction and Accommoda¬ 
tion of the Eye,” Landolt, Lippincott, Philadelphia* 
1886; “The Frog,” Marshall, London, 1894; “Anat¬ 
omy of the Frog,” Ecker, Oxford, 1889; “The Cat,” 
Mivart, Scribner, 1881; “Dissection of the Dog,” 
Howell, Holt & Co., 1888; “Anatomie des Hundes,” 
Ellenberger & Baum, Berlin, 1891; “Dictionary of 
Medicine (4to), Gould, Blackiston, Philadelphia, 1895. 

Beside these there should be recent representative 
manuals of histology, general biology, embryology* 
chemistry and physics. 

PHYSIOLOGIC CHEMISTRY. 

It has been taken for granted that the chemic prob¬ 
lems of physiology will be assigned to the department 
of chemistry. The equipment of that department 
makes such a division of the subject highly advan. 










23 


tageous. For years urine analysis has been taught, 
usually in the second year of the course in the depart¬ 
ment of chemistry. Many of the stronger institutions 
have long since expanded the second year course in 
chemistry into a very creditable course of physiologic 
chemistry, beginning with an investigation of food¬ 
stuffs, following this with qualitative and quantita¬ 
tive work on the chemistry of digestion, and devot¬ 
ing the last semester of the second year to the 
analysis of urine. The best laboratory manuals on 
this subject are: Sterling’s “ Practical Physiology” 
(first part); Long’s “ Laboratory Manual of Chemical 
Physiology,” Colegrove & Co., Chicago, 1895; Hal¬ 
liburton’s “ Essentials of Chemical Physiology,” 
Longmanns, Green & Co., 1893. The physiologic 
library should contain also: “ Text-book of Chemical 
Physiology and Pathology,” Halliburton, Longmanns, 
Green & Co, 1891; “ Physiologische Chemie,” Bunge, 
Vogel, Leipzig, 1894; “Lehrbuch d. physiologisch. 
Chemie,” Neumeister, Gustav Fischer, Jena, 1893; 
“Physiological Chemistry,” Hammarsten, Wiley & 
Sons, New York, 1893; “Physiological Chemistry of 
the Animal Body, Gamger, Macmillan, 1893; “Chem¬ 
ical Physiology and Pathology,” Hoppe-Seyler. 

GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 

This course occupies the second semester of the 
second year. The student comes prepared for this 
course through his study of biology, histology, 
physiology and bacteriology. He is familiar with 
general laboratory technique. He is already somewhat 
of an independent observer. As the minimum amount 
of time to be set apart for this course the committee 
would recommend two hours weekly of class-room 
work and six hours weekly of laboratory work. 

An ideal guide for elementary laboratory work in 
general pathology does not exist. As general reference 
works we have Ziegler’s General Pathology, Thomas’ 
General Pathological Anatomy, Birch-Hirschfeld’s 
Allgemeine Pathologie, Senn’s Tumors, Warren’s 
Surgical Pathology, etc. For class-room work the 


24 


majority of teachers will probably select (at the 
present time) Ziegler’s General Pathology. 

It is believed that the successful teaching of 
General Pathology depends essentially upon creating 
in the student a correct and vivid understanding of 
some of the more important, fundamental pathological 
processes than upon imparting a mass of miscellaneous 
and disconnected information without any visible 
footing upon clinical manifestations on the one hand 
or upon naked-eye changes on the other. As an 
illustration in point: There can be no doubt but that 
a student who observes a patient with general passive 
congestion and oedema, then studies the naked-eye 
appearances of the organs in the post-mortem room, 
and finally examines the histological changes under 
the microscope will obtain a clearer, more lasting con¬ 
ception of this form of disturbance of the circulation 
than one w T ho hears a brief oral explanation of the 
subject in general and sees under the microscope a 
prepared and labeled slide of a congested organ with¬ 
out any history and without any tangible connection 
with anything living; and so on through the list. At 
the present time the majority of our colleges are not in 
position to teach pathology in this, the rational manner. 
Stock specimens must be used. The connection of the 
tissue with the patient must be supplied by second¬ 
hand information. But much can be done, even in 
the most desolate institutions in this regard to improve 
upon the old, cut-and-dried plan. Animal experi¬ 
ments can be made by the student and the resulting 
changes studied in specimens secured and prepared 
by himself. Suitable, fresh, post-mortem material can 
also be secured from the occasional post-mortem and 
from the surgical and other clinics. An enumeration 
of the various groups of processes into which general 
pathology (general pathological anatomy) is cus¬ 
tomarily divided will call to mind the opportunities 
presented for improvements indicated in the teaching 
of this important subject: 

1. The Disturbances of Circulation (ansemia, 


25 


hyperaemia, haemorrhage, thrombosis, embolism, 
oedema, etc). In every hospital and clinic opportun¬ 
ities to observe at least some of these conditions during 
life are presented at frequent intervals. Post-mortems 
nearly constantly furnish material for the study of the 
gross changes due to some disturbance of circulation. 
Suitable animal experiments are easily made. Guided 
by judicious syllabi, by the suggestions of the wise 
teacher, and by the study of books the student in the 
systematic course will soon be led to think and reason 
correctly concerning the mechanical and other 
problems of changes in the circulation. 

2. The Retrogressive Changes of the Tissues (the 
degenerations, infiltrations, necroses and atrophies). 
The same combination of methods as hinted at above 
are applicable here also as well as in the study of 

3. The Progressive Changes (hypertroirhy and 
regeneration). All surgical clinics furnish abundant 
material for the study of regeneration and the healing 
-afterward, which the student should fix and prepare 
for microscopic study. 

4. Inflammation. In this instance the frog’s mes¬ 
entery secures for every student the chance to study 
the vascular changes. The various forms of inflam¬ 
mation are to be studied in organs, preferably from 
patients observed ante-mortem by the student, who 
describes the gross appearances of the pneumonic 
lung, the basilar meningitis, etc., and then fixes and 
makes his own prejmrations. 

5. Tumors. The surgical clinics supply an inex- 
haustable fund of the common and important neoplasms 
from the careful study of a few of which the student 
will soon work out for himself the principles of classi¬ 
fication. 

6. The Processes caused by Pathogenic Micro¬ 
organisms. Here is a wide field for the student to 
make what to him would be original observations; his 
conception of the importance of pathogenic bacteria 
will be widened and his technical skill increased by 
.staining commoner bacteria in the tissues. The 


26 


extent of liis laboratory studies in this direction must 
at this time be judiciously circumscribed. 

7. Animal Parasites. 

8. Teratology. 

9. The Exogenous and Endogenous Intoxications 
(common poisonings, uraemia, thyroid cachexia, etc.) 
These subjects present difficulties that may be over¬ 
come, in part, by the use of museum specimens (7 
and 8), in part by experiments. 

A laboratory course planned according to the same 
methods of note-taking and drawing, and real labor¬ 
atory work on part of the student, as the previous 
laboratory courses—modified as demanded by local 
conditions — and supplemented by appropriate reading 
and class-room exercises, would, in the opinion of the 
committee, make the study of general pathology of 
immeasurably greater benefit to the student than the 
methods now generally in vogue. The student would 
now be in some measure prepared to really master the 
practical branches to be presented in the third and 
fourth years, and also to profit still further by the 
opportunities given him, in the third year, to study. 

SPECIAL PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. 

Special pathological anatomy occupies three reci¬ 
tation periods a week during the whole year. 

In this course the student makes post-mortem 
examinations, under the direction of the teacher, of 
patients the clinical symptoms of which he has studied. 
He protocals the post-mortem findings; makes cultures 
from the various organs and isolates the bacteria 
present; he should prepare and study microscopic 
sections from the organs, describe their appearance 
and present complete reports upon as many cases as 
consistent with the time and opportunities at his 
disposal. Post-mortem specimens may be collected 
and demonstrations in gross morbid anatomy given 
for the purpose of teaching diagnosis of pathological 
anatomy, the student describing and determining the 
lesions present as far as possible. 

The laboratory work should consist, as stated, in 


27 


the bacteriological and histological study of the 
material derived from post-mortem examinations, 
made (or witnessed) by the student, upon patients 
that he has studied clinically. In connection with 
this work he should study the literature bearing on 
the cases and, in some cases, at any rate, he might 
write more complete papers suitable for publication. 
Systematic lectures could be given upon selected 
topics. 

The committee as a whole is responsible for the 
report, but the greatest thanks are due Dr. W. E. 
Lewis for his service in preparing the report on 
anatomy, to Dr. W. S. Hall for the report on physiology 
and general supervision, to Dr. Ludvig Hektoen for 
the report on pathology, to Dr. A. P. Ohlmacher for 
the report on histology, and to Dr. David H. Galloway 
for the report on laboratory equipment. 

BACTERIOLOGY. 

On account of its intimate bearing upon the prob¬ 
lems of disease, bacteriology, as presented in the 
medical school, should be studied closely in connec¬ 
tion with pathology. The laboratory method should 
be employed in introducing the student to this sub¬ 
ject, and progress is much facilitated when the stu¬ 
dent possesses an elementary knowledge of practical 
biology and some training in the methods of labora¬ 
tory work. It therefore seems desirable to assign 
bacteriology a place in the first half (semester) of the 
second year’s course, immediately preceding practical 
pathology which is begun in the second semester of 
this year. At least three laboratory exercises of tw T o 
(calendar) hours each a week for fifteen weeks should 
be spent in the work. Two lectures, or conferences, 
weekly, may also be employed during the semester. 
Instead of the usual lecture it would seem advisable to 
devote the two weekly lecture hours to conferences in 
which the teacher discusses with his classes the vari¬ 
ous phases of the problems which naturally have sug¬ 
gested themselves in the course of the laboratory 
work. Later in the course, when a good store of 


28 


observations have been made by the class, a few sys¬ 
tematic lectures may be employed to discuss problems 
which are of a purely theoretical nature, or which are 
too difficult to be worked out in the class-room. 

No single text-book fulfills the requirements of a 
course of this kind, and while the student may be 
encouraged to purchase one or more of the standard 
text-books, a laboratory library with various text¬ 
books, and including especially a file of the leading 
bacteriologic journals, should be provided for the use 
of the students. 

The most important thing to teach the student in 
the bacteriologic laboratory is how to work. He 
should be instructed in bacteriologic technique so that 
he masters the various methods and can put them into 
independent practice. Instead of flooding the student 
with a great variety of imperfectly studied specimens 
in a frantic effort to illustrate all the disease-produc¬ 
ing bacteria described in the text-book, teach him the 
technique of the bacteriologic laboratory and the use 
of the library so that he has the means for working 
out the problems which will present themselves when 
he sets out to work for himself. 

Each student should be supplied with a full equip¬ 
ment of apparatus and material of a simple kind so 
that individual practice may be obtained in all of the 
methods demanded in the course. Everything in the 
student’s equipment should be as simple and inexpen¬ 
sive as possible. Cheap tin stew pans and spoons, 
and tin funnels are more economical than correspond¬ 
ing pieces in glass. Instead of one or two large and 
complicated steam sterilizers for general class use, a 
small-sized Arnold sterilizer or a cheap tin apparatus 
on the principle of the steamer used in cooking should 
be given to each student. Salmonsen’s cracker-box is 
a better dry sterilizing oven for the beginner in bac¬ 
teriology than the elaborate ovens of Rolirbeck or 
Muencke. A simple, double-walled drying oven 
claims the advantage over an elaborate and expensive 
thermostat for the purpose in hand. 


29 


Every detail in the manufacture of the various 
kinds of culture media should be carried out by the 
student. He cultivates his own bacteria; makes all 
the temporary and permanent preparations; inoculates 
animals and recovers the bacteria; all by his own 
handiwork. Instead of depending on the stock of 
pure cultures with which most bacteriologic labora¬ 
tories are provided, the teacher should require the stu¬ 
dent to obtain his own pure cultures of both non- 
pathogenic and pathogenic bacteria from the raw 
material. The hay bacillus should be obtained from 
the hay, the potato bacillus from the potato, the 
staphylococcus aureus from a boil or pimple, the colon 
bacillus from feces, and so on as far as possible. 

The pathogenic microbes are naturally of the great¬ 
est importance to the student of medicine, and in a 
short course like the present one it will be found nec¬ 
essary to confine the work pretty closely upon those 
bacteria which are associated with human pathology. 
On the other hand, the time spent upon the non- 
pathogenic bacteria must be short. For the prelim¬ 
inary technical training, however, the non-pathogenic 
bacteria must be chosen instead of the pathogenic 
species, which would be unsafe to place in untrained 
hands. By exposing a slice of sterilized potato to the 
air the student can usually obtain several varieties of 
harmless bacteria, together with yeast and mold. 
Several of these accidental species may be studied in 
detail upon various culture media, by the hanging- 
drop, and in stained preparations the separation of 
bacteria can be learned by practice on samples of tap- 
water, while the methods of bacteriologic analysis of 
water, ice, milk and soil are at the same time illus¬ 
trated. In this introductory work the general princi¬ 
ple of morphology and physiology of bacteria will be 
acquired by the student and the way opened for the 
study of classification. With the data obtained in this 
work the student should now attempt to classify one 
or more of his unknown species, making use of the 
keys in some such work as Eisenberg’s Bacteriolog- 


30 


ical Diagnosis or Sternberg’s Manual of Bacteriology. 

When this introductory work is completed the study 
of some of the disease-producing bacteria may be com¬ 
menced. A few of the more readly obtained types, 
like the pyogenic cocci from acne pustules and the 
bacillus coli from the feces of man or the domestic 
animals, should first be chosen by the student, and the 
species should be isolated, studied in detail and iden¬ 
tified by each member of the class. No rule can be 
made for the order of this portion of the work, for 
much will depend upon the supply of material. Aside 
from those ever-present harbors of pathogenic bacte¬ 
ria, like the skin and mucous membranes, which may 
be called upon to furnish the student with specimens, 
material from a variety of pathologic conditions like 
the pus of appendicitis, the membrane of diphtheria, 
the spleen of typhoid, the lung of pneumonia, which 
constanly find their way into the bacteriologic labora¬ 
tory may be utilized for further class-room study. 
Here the technique of the smear preparation, alike of 
secretions, exudates and of tissue can be learned. 
Suppose, for example, that the surgeon sends to the 
laboratory a sterilized test tube full of appendicitis 
pus. Each student in the class makes plate cultures 
from the pus. and then studies it microscopically as a 
fresh preparation and finally makes smears which he 
fixes and stains in various ways. When the cultures 
develop they are studied in detail and compared with 
the bacteria found in the fresh and stained pus. Thus 
the student obtains a good picture of the relation of 
the bacteria to the morbid process, and incidentally 
he learns how to work independently. Only a few 
examples like this need be given to a student to fur¬ 
nish him with the proper foundation for future inde-. 
pendent work. 

Somewhere in connection with the foregoing work 
the technique of blood, pus, sputum examination, 
and the culture test for diphtheria can be introduced 
and duly emphasized. 

The final step in the identification of a pathogenic 


31 


bacterial species, that is, the experimental inocula¬ 
tion of a susceptible animal and the recovery of the 
bacterium in the blood and tissues by smears, sec¬ 
tions and cultures, may be acquired by the study of a 
mouse or a guinea pig which the student inoculates 
with anthrax. Here, also, the technique of a bacte- 
riologic autopsy in all its details can be learned. Once 
having learned this method the student may test the 
pathogenic activity of some of the species which he 
has isolated, as for example, the baciljus of diphtheria. 

Only when the student has learned to work and has 
learned from his own experience the relation of bac¬ 
teria in their various habitats, should he be furnished 
with cultures out of the laboratory stock. There is 
then no objection to furnishing him with examples of 
the more important pathogenic bacteria which he 
would not be likely to encounter in his class room 
work, such as the spirillum of cholera and the bacil¬ 
lus of tetanus, for instance. 

The laboratory study of the bacterial products, of 
immunity, of bacteriologic therapy, and many other 
advanced lines of work must be left for elective 
courses. 

The application of the knowledge gained in the 
above mentioned course should be made in the third 
and fourth years’ courses. In the third year’s course, 
when special pathology is studied, a bacteriologic ex¬ 
amination of the morbid material brought into the 
•class room should go hand in hand with the study of 
the gross and microscopic lesions in all diseases of 
infectious origin. In the fourth year’s course, also, 
the student should be given the facilities for making 
bacteriologic examinations of the material obtained in 
the medical and surgical clinics and at the bedside. 
In this way the practical bearings of his knowledge of 
bacteriology will be indelibly impressed upon the stu¬ 
dent, and constant practice will keep the technique 
fresh so that, upon leaving the medical school, he can 
at once apply his knowledge in private practice or in 
his hospital course. 


32 


It must be evident that no laboratory text-book will 
meet the requirements of a course of this kind. The 
teacher must supply his students with syllabi prepared 
to cover the particular work in hand, especially in the 
early part of the work. In these syllabi careful tech¬ 
nic directions should be given, along with sugges¬ 
tions as to the observations which the student is to 
make and to record, along with appropriate drawings. 
The slip system of taking notes and drawings has 
much to recommend it, and it should find its way into 
all lines of laboratory work. A convenient size.of 
slip for laboratory work is 5J x 8J inches with port¬ 
folio to correspond. 1 

LABORATORY EQUIPMENT. 

The efficiency of the laboratory depends in a large 
measure upon the care devoted to the enormous amount 
of detail required to obtain the proper kind and 
amount of apparatus and material, to care for it when 
obtained, and to properly distribute it for the use of 
students and teachers. This can not possibly be left 
to the teachers in the various departments, but must 
be concentrated in the hands of one man who will 
attend to it impartially for all the laboratories in the 
institution. This should be the duty of the curator. 
The person selected to fill this important office must 
be possessed of peculiar abilities and command the 
entire confidence of the management of the institu¬ 
tion. He should be given general instructions regard¬ 
ing the policy of the management toward the labora¬ 
tories and complete information as to the resources at 
his command. Beyond this he should be allowed to 
work out the details without interference. 

The curator must be provided with ample store 
rooms and a laboratory in which to prepare reagents 
and fit up apparatus. This room should have a table 
with lead-covered top gently sloping to a drain at one 
end, water and gas pipes tapped at short intervals with 

i Teachers unfamiliar with the slip system of taking notes will find 
a derailed description in Wilder and Gage’s Anatomical Technology, 
1882, pp. 45-52. 




33 


attachment for rubber hose. The curator should be 
competent to prepare all reagents used in the micro¬ 
scopical laboratories and the ordinary solutions used in 
chemistry, which means that he should have a good 
general knowledge of chemistry. 

He must first procure for himself all apparatus and 
material for a manufacturing laboratory, beakers, evap¬ 
orating dishes and flasks, from the small sizes issued 
to students up to those of several liters’ capacity. 
Graduates, measuring flasks, pipettes, a druggist’s bal¬ 
ance, a counterpoise balance for weighing liquids, 
and by all odds let all weights and measures be in the 
metric system. Bunsen and dental burners, retort 
stands, tripods, an assortment of corks, xx, from num¬ 
ber 1 to 24, rubber tubing, bottles in abundance, from 
one-eighth ounce morphin up to five gallon seltzer; 
a list so long that a day or two will be required to 
make it out. Then in a book he must set down every¬ 
thing that is to be manufactured, adding to this list 
as new requirements arise, checking off each item as 
it is finished, making a record of the amount made, 
when made, indicating the formula used and referr¬ 
ing to the place where the formula may be found. 
Only a small part of his duties can be outlined here, 
but where special instructions are necessary they will 
be given under their appropriate heads. Everything 
issued to students in the shape of material and re¬ 
agents must be labeled. For this purpose order from 
the druggist’s label printer gummed strip labels the 
size of a druggist’s shake label. A large number of 
these will be required, but they are inexpensive, about 
thirty cents per thousand. The following list will do 
for a basis and may be modified to suit: 

LIST OF LABELS. 


- % acetic acid. 

- % chromic acid. 

- % hydrochloric acid. 

- % nitric acid. 

Sulphuric acid. 
Agar agar. 

AgN0 3 . 


Fehling’s solution, 
quantitative. 
Flemming’s solution. 
FeS. 

Grape sugar. 

Guaiac. 

Glycerin. 


34 


Albumin fixative. 
Absolute alcohol. 

- % alcohol. 

Alum carmine. 
Ammonia. 

Analin. 

Analin water. 

Baryta mixture. 
Benzine. 

Bismarck brown. 

Borax carmine. 

Bromin Water. 

Canada balsam. 
Carnoy’s solution. 
Carbol-fuchsin. 

- Carmine. 

Chloroform. 

Chlorin water. 
Celloidin. 

Congo red. 

CS 2 . 

Cupric acetate solution. 
Distilled water. 

Dahlia. 

Eosin, aqueous. 

Eosin, alcoholic. 

Eosin in glycerin. 
Fehling’s solution, 
qualitative. 


Gelatin. 

Gentian violet. 

-Hematoxylon. 

K 2 Cr 2 0 7 . 

KClOo. 

Labels. 

-Methyl blue. 

Miller’s fluid. 

Methyl violet. 

Molybdic acid sol. 

NaNo 3 . 

Oil bergamot. 

Oil cloves. 

Oil cedar. 

Peptone. 

Paraffin, hard. 

Paraffin, soft. 
Phenylhydrazin chlorid. 
Rubrin. 

Salt. 

-Safranin. 

Sulphur. 

Sodic carbonate sol. 
Turpentine. 

Uranic acetate. 
Ultramarine blue. 
Weigert’s deodorizing sol. 
Xylol. 


A week or ten days will be required to get these out. 


IMPORTATION OF APPARATUS AND MATERIAL FREE OF 

DUTY. 

The import duty on apparatus and material used in 
the laboratories averages about 40 per cent. Provi¬ 
sion is made in the law whereby institutions of learn¬ 
ing may have these duties remitted. 

Each laboratory teacher should be required to make 
out a list of things he wishes to use and an estimate 
of the probable quantity. From these the curator 
makes his list which will include but once the name 
of every article used in all the laboratories of the 
entire institution, he can then make his own estimate 
of the quantity needed. The curator should familiar¬ 
ize himself with the work being done in all the labor- 


35 


atories so that he may judiciously trim the order to tit 
the appropriation, so that if economy is necessary it 
may be applied where it can best be borne. An order 
was once given including five orders for nitrate of 
silver, a pound package, a half pound, a quarter pound 
and two ounce packages. The price varied from $8 
for the pound to a rate of $16 per pound for the ounces. 
In a $2000 order where one teacher’s quota was about 
$200 he called for 100 grams of an organic prepara¬ 
tion the price on which varied from $1250 to $1600. 
This list with price was “o.K.’d” by the purchasing com¬ 
mittee and would have been ordered had it not been cut 
out by the curator. Of the curator’s list half a dozen or 
more copies should be made and sent to as many 
importing houses with a request for quotations. 
Ordinarily the price should include delivery at the 
laboratory. 

All material so obtained must be used in the insti¬ 
tution and heavy penalties may be exacted should any 
of it be given away or sold. Two to five months are 
absolutely necessary to get goods from Europe. Ex¬ 
perience, however, teaches that six months is not too 
much time to allow, and if this time is allowed there 
will be fewer disappointments. 

The number of different kinds of apparatus should 
be kept as low as possible. For instance, have but one 
style of beaker, one style of flask and one style of 
evaporating dish. 

Five sizes of each will be ample. Each size must 
have a separate place in the store room and it will be 
easier to provide places for five sizes of one style of 
beaker than for five sizes of each of five different 
styles. A little judicious consulting with demonstra¬ 
tors will make this feasible. It is difficult to detail 
the annoyance and expense caused by a disregard of 
this rule. Ten different teachers will call for ten dif¬ 
ferent kinds or makes of the same thing and it will 
require the services of half a dozen men to take 
care of the supplies which one might otherwise easily 
do. When the goods arrive some representative of 


36 


the institution must go before the collector of cus¬ 
toms and make oath that they are intended for use in 
the institution and that they will not be sold or other¬ 
wise disposed of. The goods must be examined by 
the customs authorities either in the customhouse or 
at the college when they are unpacked. The latter is 
preferable and should be requested. 

TAX-FREE ALCOHOL. 

Alcohol intended for scientific purposes may be 
withdrawn from bond without payment of internal 
revenue taxes. Instead of its costing $2.75 per gallon 
it may be obtained for about 50 cents, a saving of $80 
or $90 on a barrel. To accomplish this the curator 
must make out a bond which is to be signed by two 
persons who are not officers of the institution, and who 
are citizens of the United States. This bond must be 
for an amount at least twice as great as the tax on the 
quantity of alcohol to be withdrawn at any one time. 
Thus a two hundred dollar bond will only allow one 
barrel to be withdrawn at one time, therefore the bond 
should be for at least $500 in which case a second 
barrel may be withdrawn before the first is entirely 
used up and the bond released. He must now go to 
a bonded warehouse and get the “ description” of a 
barrel of alcohol and have the barrel set aside, he must 
take this description together with the bond to the 
collector of internal revenue for the district in which 
the institution is located. These papers are sent to 
Washington and in a week or ten days a permit to 
withdraw for scientific purposes, the described alcohol 
will be received by the curator from the office of the 
Secretary of the Treasury. Some time and annoy¬ 
ance to all parties to the transaction will be saved if 
the application be made early in the month so that 
the alcohol may be delivered before the last day of 
the calendar month, otherwise it must be rebonded. 
The curator will now be required to sign a receipt 
which says he has already received the alcohol; this 
is to be sent to the collector who will then issue an 
order on the manufacturer or storekeeper to deliver it 


37 


to the college. A page in the curator’s record should 
be devoted to alcohol. Here is entered the descrip¬ 
tion of every barrel of alcohol, just as in the applica¬ 
tion, with space for the date of receipt and date of 
release. 

In the bond a time is mentioned when proof that it 
has been used according to law must be submitted to 
the collector. This time is usually six months or a 
year. At the expiration of this time or wdien applica¬ 
tion is made for more, the curator must present to the 
collector this proof, which is simply his affidavit to 
that effect. 

LABORATORY TABLES. 

A convenient laboratory table for microscopic 
work may be of the following dimensions: 

Top, 7 ft. 3 in. x 2 ft. 2 in.; from the floor to top of 
table 2 ft. 6 in. It will have four cupboards 18 inches 
wide, 12 inches high and about 2 feet deep. 

The upper part of the cupboard is occupied by a 
drawer 3 inches deep. The box containing the stu¬ 
dent’s kit of apparatus just fits in under the drawer. 
The stools for the students to sit upon while at work 
should be 22 inches high. This table will accommo¬ 
date two students at a time and afford accommodation 
for two classes. Two desks are to be placed with their 
backs together one inch apart and the space between 
bridged over by a board 3 inches wide. A gas pipe 
comes up in this place and runs the length of the 
table 3 inches above it. A four-way T opposite each 
place is fitted with a gas tap for each student. 

The gas pillars instead of brass should be cast iron 
with the slit cut larger; these being much more con¬ 
venient for slipping the rubber tube on and off. These 
double tables are placed with their ends to the win¬ 
dows if daylight is to be used. If gas is to be used 
for illumination, burners having chimneys are neces¬ 
sary, as an open gas flame is too unsteady for micro¬ 
scopical work. Some of the patented incandescent gas 
lamps furnish a white light which is very serviceable. 
Incandescent electric lights are said to be unsatisfac- 


38 


tory owing to the yellow color. Perhaps kerosene 
lamps are best though somewhat troublesome to keep 
in order. 

This gives each student 3J x 2 feet of table space 
which is ample for most of the work but not too 
much. The door on this cupboard should be fitted 
on the outside where the hinges are placed so that it 
will sw T ing round through three-fourths of a circle and 
thus be where it will not be broken. 

If it is hinged to the left instead of to the right it 
will swing under the student’s own table and thus not 
interfere with his neighbor. 

LOCKS AND KEYS. 

This is rather a large item of expense but it will 
not do to get a poor lock. Ability to settle with stu¬ 
dents satisfactorily depends in a large measure on the 
integrity of the lock. A Yale lock with corrugated 
key is not too good. Stipulate with the manufacturer 
that he mark each key {but not the lock ) with a con¬ 
secutive number and this number must be continuous 
for all the locks, having a similar key in the institu¬ 
tion. Each laboratory must be designated by a num¬ 
ber or letter, and all the doors having a lock in each 
laboratory must be numbered consecutively. 

Each lock and its two keys will come wrapped in a 
separate paper or box; take these at random, or better 
still, mix them up with some care; now take a book 
ruled as follows with horizontal lines and three verti¬ 
cal columns. 



KEY. 

LAB. 

DOOR. 



1 

A 

24 



2 

B 

36 



3 

C 

48 


1. 4 

.__i_ 

D 

91 



In the first column the numbers are consecutive and 
there are as many lines as you have locks. The first 
column is headed key, the second is headed labora- 






















39 


TORY and the third is the desk or door in that partic¬ 
ular laboratory. After the desks are all in place and 
numbers on, take the locks and key list, go into the 
laboratory, begin at one end, select a lock at random, 
place it in the cupboard or drawer it is to be put on, 
mark the laboratory and door in their appropriate col¬ 
umns and on the line corresponding to the number on 
the key. Follow this up till every door has its lock 
and every line and Column on your key list is full. 
The curator must do this himself and never trust it to 
w T orkmen. A carpenter follows, puts on the locks 
and leaves the key in each one. When this is done 
the curator takes a portable key board and gathers up 
the keys. The keys are to be kept in a drawer where 
they are protected from moist are, dust and the fumes 
of chemicals. Such a drawer may be fitted up in the 
following manner: 

The drawer selected should be three inches deep. 
Set in a loose false bottom three-fourths inch from 
the top. Rule this off in squares one inch each way 
and wdiere the lines intersect bore holes just large 
enough to allow the keys to drop down to the shoulder. 
Number the holes with the gummed paper numbers 
made by Dennison and varnish the whole drawer. A 
drawer eleven by twenty-one inches will contain 200 
holes. Each hole will contain the two keys of the 
lock whose number corresponds to the number on the 
hole. 

When desks are to be assigned, one key for each 
lock in that laboratory is taken on a portable key 
board and issued as places are assigned. The dupli¬ 
cate key is never allowed to go out of the hands of the 
curator and taken out of the drawer only to unlock 
the desks for the purpose of examining their contents, 
or when first key is lost. If a student loses a key he 
is charged the full price of the lock. The lock is 
removed and replaced by another. If a key is broken 
it is replaced for 25 cents. This prevents students 
from carrying the keys away and then “going through” 
that desk the next term when it is occupied by some one 


40 


else. A key picked up anywhere can be at once loca¬ 
ted by reference to the chart, while without the chart 
it is useless to anyone finding it. 

MICROSCOPES. 

The microscopes should be kept in a special room 
or cabinet where they are protected from injurious 
influences. This place should be fitted with shelves 
and these shelves spaced off with cleats and each 
space numbered to correspond with the number on a 
microscope. If the microscopes are of different 
quality, or not enough so that each student in the 
class can have one, they may be satisfactorily issued 
in the following manner: A large sheet of paper 
(one for each class) is prepared with as many hori¬ 
zontal lines as there are students in the class and with 
a vertical column for each laboratory day during the 
term. The names are arranged on this chart alpha¬ 
betically. Then if there are seven students and only 
five microscopes they will be issued from day to day 
according to the accompanying chart. 


Pathology 1892-1893. 



Sept. 21. 

Sept. 23. 

Sept. 25. 

Oct. 1. 


Bennett, G. L. 

1 

3 

5 


2 

Hamilton, A. C. 

2 

4 


1 

3 

Mellon, J. S. 

3 

5 


2 

4 

Smith, C. J. 

4 


1 

3 

5 

Thomas, A. L. 

5 


2 

4 


Wilson,M. S. 


1 

3 

5 


Williams, H. L. 


2 

4 


1 


The numbers being filled in before class time, then 
no matter who comes first he will get the microscope 
allotted to him for that day. There will thus be no 
incentive to crowding. As they are returned at the 
close of the lesson each is returned to its appropri¬ 
ate place and the curator can see at once when all 
are in. In case a microscope is injured or any of 
its parts missing the responsibility can be instantly 
located by reference to the chart. Lamps, dissect¬ 
ing microscopes, micrometers, oil immersion, objec¬ 
tives, drawing apparatus, etc., can be kept and issued 
in the same way and at the same time. Microscopes 

















41 


should not be allowed to go into the chemical lab¬ 
oratory except with the most careful precautions to 
protect them from injury. The evolution of injurious 
gases in the rooms where they are kept or are in use 
must not be tolerated for a moment. If a large class 
is to begin the study of the microscope (and every 
class should study the microscope before studying 
microscopy), a number of students with some experi¬ 
ence should be invited to assist the teacher at the first 
lesson, at least, so that there will be, if practicable, 
an instructor to each microscope. This will be of real 
advantage to both the beginner and the student who 
assists. 

students’ kits of apparatus and material. 

Order from a box factory as many boxes as there 
are students expected. A good quality of packing box 
will do, made of dressed lumber, seven-eighth inch 
ends and one-quarter inch sides and bottom, without 
-covers, of such dimensions that they will fit into the 
cupboards in the laboratory tables. Boxes 18 inches 
wide, 24 inches long and 8 inches deep will about fit 
ihe tables described, and will cost not to exceed $12 
to. $15 per hundred. Printed lists of the apparatus 
and material to be furnished each student are pro¬ 
vided, where laboratory courses in two or more subjects 
are conducted in the same room and with the same 
students the outfit for them all may conveniently 
be combined into one kit. These kits are best fitted 
up by arranging the boxes in a row on a table, then 
taking a tray containing a sufficient number of the 
first item on the list, walking down the row and 
putting in each box the number called for. Then 
follow with a tray of the next article, and so on till 
all are filled, and lastly put in one of the printed 
lists. The boxes are then piled up out of the way 
and are ready for distribution to the students on the 
day in which places in the laboratory are assigned. 
When the box is delivered to the student he is 
required to take it to his place in the laboratory, 
check up the kit with the printed list, sign his name 


42 ' 


and desk number to the latter and return it to the 
curator as a receipt. These lists are now put sepa¬ 
rately into envelopes bearing across the end the name 
of the student to whom it belongs. The envelopes 
are arranged alphabetically and placed on end in a 
drawer prepared for the purpose. Each student is 
furnished with a small tablet of order blanks, plain 
pieces of paper 2Jx5 inches, and henceforth every 
order on the curator for anything must be written on 
one of these slips and bear the name and desk number 
of the student. No orders on other paper will be 
honored. As these orders are filled, they are checked 
with a blue pencil and put into a convenient box. As- 
the close of the term approaches these slips are 
assorted by an assistant and put in the envelopes with 
the printed slips. When the kits are returned to tho 
store-room at the close of the term the curator and 
his assistant checks them up with the contents of the 
respective envelopes, puts a price on each item missing, 
dirty or damaged, marks the amount on the outside 
of the envelope and returns to each envelope its con¬ 
tents. Each envelope now contains the complete 
itemized account of a student and is preserved until 
a final settlement is made and the student receipts 
for settlement, when it is to be burned. 

The amounts on the outside of the envelopes are 
entered in the curator’s record book in the proper 
column and the total charged against each student is 
found by adding together the various charges on his 
line. 

Everything possible should be issued to the student 
individually and charged up to him, then if he wishes 
to be wasteful and extravagant it will be at his own 
expense. Nothing should be “on tap” except gas and 
water. Each laboratory should have a gas meter and 
the gas charged to the class, and the cost divided 
equally among the members of that class. Slides, 
cover-glasses and other material are often prepared 
by the demonstrators for distribution to this class; 
but this is a faulty, pedagogic method and should not 


be permitted. Students must obtain everything from 
the store-room on their personal order and there 
should be no bottles “on the side” from which they 
can help themselves. Every one should be required 
to leave his desk clean and in perfect order on quit¬ 
ting the room. Habits of cleanliness and order should 
be insisted upon, and any indication of rowdyism 
repressed. Smoking should not be allowed in any of 
the .laboratories. Young men who believe that it is 
the student’s prerogative to smoke while at work, 
chew tobacco and spit upon the floors of laboratories 
or lecture rooms, mark up walls, whittle and break up 
furniture and otherwise bring into the school the 
habits of the rowdy should be promptly advised to 
become sewer builders, street pavers or enter some 
other occupation where their habits will not be an 
offense to all decent people. The medical profession is 
surely not in need of such material. 

The following lists represent kits which have been 
found suitable for the work in the laboratories named. 
The following shows the form of the printed slips. 
The other laboratory lists are set solid to save space. 

Name. Desk No. . . . 

LABORATORY OF BACTERIOLOGY. 

See that your apparatus and material is all here and in per¬ 
fect order, then sign your name at the top and return this 
slip to the curator. 

Check 

here. $ cts. 

.... [Agar agar. 

. . . . Apple corer. 

.... iBlotting paper. 

.... Bunsen burner and tube. 

.... I Cotton. 

.... [Cheese cloth. 

.... [Droppers, 3 . 

.... Forceps, cover glass. 

.... I Filter papers, 1 doz., 25 cm. 

.... Flasks, 1,000 c.c., 3 . .. 

.... Funnels, 2. 

.... [Gelatin, 40 grams. 

. . . . [Grape sugar, 5 grams. 

Note book, peptone 15 gm., 6 petrie dishes, Pillsbury box, 
platinum needle, potato knife, granite-ware pan, tripod, salt, 
slide, concave center, sponges for cleaning desk, test paper, 100 

























44 


test tubes, test tube brush, towel, wash bottle, 2 wire baskets. 

STAINS AND REAGENTS IN BOTTLES. 

Aniline water, balsam, nitric acid, sodic carbonate solution, 
glycerin, carbol-fuchsin, gentian violet, methyl blue aqueous. 

LABORATORY OF EMBRYOLOGY, HISTOLOGY AND PHARMACOLOGY. 

Alcohol, 3 camel’s hair pencils, cheese cloth, oblong cover 
glasses 2 sizes, cover glasses, circles, drawing paper, 3 drop¬ 
pers, eraser and brush, filter paper in strips 1 package, cover 
glass forceps, fine pointed forceps, 2 glass rods, 1 box labels, 
tripod magnifier, 12 morphin bottles and corks, 2 teasing nee¬ 
dles, 1 box hard paraffin, 1 box soft paraffin, 2 pencils hard 
and soft, 6 French drawing pens, 2 Pillsbury boxes, 2 porce¬ 
lain dishes, 34 gross plain glass slides, concave center 
glass slide, section lifter, 2 pairs scissors fine and coarse, 
sponge for cleaning desk, towel, tin pan, 5 test tubes, 6 watch 
glasses, 1 solid watch glass. 

STAINS AND REAGENTS IN BOTTLES. 

Alum carmine, balsam, borax carmine, eosin aqueous, Car- 
noy’s solution, celloidin and clove oil, chloroform, chromic 
acid solution, gentian violet, hematoxylon Delafield, hydro¬ 
chloric acid, Mueller’s fluid, oil of cloves, oil of cedar, safra- 
nin, 1 per cent, solution silver nitrate, xylol and carbolic acid. 

LABORATORY OF BIOLOGY, HISTOLOGY AND PHARMACOGNOSY. 

Alcohol, beaker, benzine, blotting paper, glass blowpipe, 1 
oz. q. s. bottle, 3camel’s hair pencils, cheesecloth, celloidin, % 
inch No. 2 box cover glasses, cork sheet, drawing paper, 6 draw¬ 
ing pens, 2 drawing pencils, india ink, eraser and brush, dissect¬ 
ing pans, 3 droppers, 12 filters, 2 forceps, funnel, 2 glass rods, 6 
4 oz. screw cap jars, one 16 oz. screw cap jar, 1 box labels, tri¬ 
pod magnifier, notebook, 2 needles, paraffin hard and soft, 
Pillsbury box, box black pins, 2 porcelain dishes, 1 retort stand, 
3 retort rings, scissors, scalpel, 34 gross glass slides, sponge, 5 
test tubes, test tube brush, towel, wash bottle, 6 watch glasses, 
1 solid watch glass. 

STAINS AND REAGENTS IN BOTTLES. 

Alum carmine, albumin fixative, balsam, borax carmine, 
chromic acid sol., eosin aqueous, gentian violet, hydrochloric 
acid, hematoxylon, Delafield Muller’s fluid, oil of cloves, oil of 
cedar, safranin, silver nitrate sol., ultramarine blue. 

LABORATORY OF EMBRYOLOGY, PATHOLOGY AND SURGICAL 
PATHOLOGY. 

Alcohol, absolute alcohol, quart tin basin, blotting paper, 3 
camel’s hair pencils, cheese cloth, cover glass circles, cover 
glass oblong (18 large, 18 small), drawing paper, drawing pen¬ 
cils, 6 droppers, eraser and brush, fine pointed forceps, coarse 
straight forceps, weight forceps, box labels, tripod magnifier, 
12 morphin bottles and corks, 2 needles, paraffin hard and soft, 


45 


scissors, 34 gross glass slides, concave center slide, sponge, 3 
test tubes, test tube brush, towel, solid watch glass, 6 watch 
glasses. 

STAINS AND REAGENTS IN BOTTLES. 

Acetic acid, alum carmine, ammonia, albumin fixative, bal¬ 
sam, Bismarck brown, Carnoy’s sc!., celloidin, chloroform, 
cupric acetate sol., eosin in glycerin, eosin in alcohol, hydro¬ 
chloric acid, hematoxylon Weigert, hematoxylon Delafield, 
methyl blue, oil bergamot, oil of cloves, Weigert’s decolorizing 
sol., rubin, xylol and carbolic acid. 

LABORATORY OF CHEMISTRY. — A. 

Burette, 5 beakers, Bunsen burner and hose, file, 2 packages 
filter paper, filter stand, 2 flasks, 2 funnels, funnel tube, 2 feet 
glass tubing, 2 glass rods, hydrogen sulphid tube, mortar and 
pestle, pincers, platinum needle, 2 porcelain dishes, retort 
stand, 3 retort rings, sand bath, 10 test tubes, test tube rack, 
test tube brush, pipe stem triangle, urinometer, wash bottle, 
water bath, 3 watch glasses, wire gauze. 

REAGENTS. 

Anilin blue, baryta mixture, Congo red, eosin, Fehling’s so¬ 
lution quantitative, Fehling’s solution qualitative, gentian 
violet, tr. guaiac, phenylhydrazin chlorid, sulphanilic acid, 
potassium dichromate, sodium nitrite, sodium chlorid, sul¬ 
phur, ether, alcohol, iodic acid, bromin water, chloroform, 
hydrogen peroxid. 

LABORATORY OF CHEMISTRY. — B. 

Aluminum wire, 5 beakers, blow pipe, Bunsen burner and 
hose, file, filter paper, 4 and 6 oz. flasks, 2 funnels, funnel tube, 
2 feet glass tubing, 2 glass rods, hydrogen sulphid tube, pin¬ 
cers, platinum foil, platinum needle, porcelain dish, retort 
stand, 3 retort rings, sand bath, sponge, test paper, 10 test 
tubes, test tube rack, test tube brush, towel, pipe stem tri¬ 
angle, wash bottle, 3 watch glasses, wire gauze. 

REAGENTS. 

Red lead, ferrous sulphid, potassicchlorate, carbon disulphid. 

curator’s record book. 

In order to reduce book-keeping to practical limits 
a special book is required. It may be of any conve¬ 
nient size, but where there are a number of labora¬ 
tories and many students the following is a good size. 
The page is seventeen and one-half inches high and 
the double page twenty-three inches wide. It is 
check-ruled so that there are one hundred horizontal 
and about one hundred and forty vertical lines on a 


page. Every other horizontal line is heavier than the 
rest. The account of each student is placed on one 
of the heavy horizontal lines, making fifty on a page. 
Five vertical columns are allowed for the account in 
each laboratory. The heavy lines are numbered both 
at the left and right of the double page. The names 
of the students are written on the left, their accounts 
in the respective laboratories filled in the proper 
column and when settlement is made the student 
signs his name at the extreme right of the same line. 
Thus each student’s account occupies but one double 
line and is a matter of permanent record. This book 
must also contain a complete inventory of all the 
microscopes and other permanent apparatus, with 
description, manufacturer’s and private marks to be 
used for purposes of identification. Also, alpha¬ 
betically arranged a list of everything in the original 
purchase, with columns for the amounts purchased 
each year, and the price paid. This is necessary as a 
basis for the price to be charged students and for 
future orders. 

Wm. Osler, Pres’t, Baltimore. 

Bayard Holmes, Sec’y, Chicago. 
















UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 



0112 11798 


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